Also speaking

I think it touches on the previous answer that I gave around what our department is going to do and the commitment that we have to make sure that we are using the resources, updating our website in terms of the tools that are available around family law, and helping to explain the provisions that are contained in Bill C-78, so that, hopefully, when it becomes law, we can provide those tools to practitioners to explain various factors that are in the best interests of the child.

As you will note from the legislation, there are many factors there to assist practitioners, lawyers and CYS courts in interpreting the law.

When parents separate, children have rights. In a conflict between parents, it would be helpful for the child to be represented by a lawyer, if necessary, to assert the child's interests, without of course reducing the three parties' access to legal aid.

UNICEF Canada recommends that the child's opinion be considered, based on criteria other than the child's age.

We think that would make the child's best interests the central concern in divorce cases. Would you agree with the proposal that the government should provide for representation for the child, if necessary?

First of all, the whole premise of Bill C-78 is to ensure the best interests of the child are paramount and central to any considerations.

I know that this representation of the child and the child's interests was something that was raised by a colleague of yours. This falls within provincial and territorial responsibility around representation, but again, I suspect this is an issue that will come up when I have conversations with my counterparts in the provinces and territories.

Rest assured, in terms of the best interests of the child, this is central to the legislation. It's the central premise we uphold.

You talked about the need to reduce child poverty, which is an objective of Bill C-78, specifically through measures to facilitate the enforcement of support orders. Such measures are clearly very helpful in reducing the impact of divorce on the parent who has custody of the children. Some people argue, however, that their effectiveness is limited, especially for families with low socio-economic status.

I have three sub-questions.

What percentage of parents in Canada do not meet their support obligations? Do we have that data?

Perhaps you can provide that information later on? I see that you agree.

To what extent can we reduce child poverty by more strictly enforcing support orders if the parent who has to pay has limited financial resources? That is what worries me. Support orders are fine, but if the parent's resources are limited, they might not be able to meet their obligations. Have you made any provisions for that?

There are, as I said, billions of dollars of outstanding child support that has not been paid. We're providing, by way of this bill—if it becomes law—the ability to gain access to income tax returns to have a better idea of the amount of money an individual has and to be able to collect and garnish income, potentially.

As you say, that doesn't answer all family situations where individuals live in poverty. That's why our government has sought to take other measures to address the poverty that children live in through the Canada child benefit and through various other means. This is poverty with respect to children. Having the ability to be raised in a comfortable manner is a broader issue that can be addressed in this piece of legislation.

What we're seeking to do in the changes that we're proposing in Bill C-78 is to provide the tools to enable, as much as we can, billions of dollars of unpaid child support to be paid.

Thank you, Minister, for coming in today and talking about this very important legislation.

Minister, this is a topic that comes up very often among my constituents, especially those who are women who are finding it difficult to really even start divorce proceedings or to get themselves out of a bad marriage or a bad home, just because of the financial implications.

Can you help us understand how Bill C-78 would really help those who are in the middle class—and those who are working hard to join it—be able to go through this process, liberate themselves and their families, and get themselves out of those bad situations?

Thank you for your question. I guess the premise of your question is that, in your riding and in ridings across the country, Canadian families are incredibly different. Individuals find themselves in difficult situations. As I said in my opening remarks, individuals' first and possibly only interaction with the courts is through the breakdown of a marriage: separation and divorce.

What we're seeking to do, based on advocacy over many decades, is to ensure that where there's a child of a marriage, we put the best interests of that child first in terms of parental orders. We also, for the first time ever, in Bill C-78 seek to amend the Divorce Act to account for particular circumstances where there is family violence and to put a definition of family violence into the Divorce Act, as well as factors that will determine and assist in determining the severity of the family violence to which we know many women are subject. That needs to be taken into account, especially in terms of the relationship with the children.

To the affordability question, in terms of efficiencies and in terms of access to justice, we're trying to encourage alternative dispute resolution processes, as we talked about earlier, that take us out of the courts and are, for the most part, lower cost for individuals who seek to find parenting arrangements in a less combative environment but also a less costly one.

We do know—as I said in my remarks—that there is a feminization of poverty. Some 96% of the unpaid family support orders are for women. They don't receive those orders. We need to make sure we can do everything to provide the necessary tools to gain access to the financial information of a parent who owes those support orders and to make the correct determinations for what those orders should be, as well as additional tools like being able to garnish a parent's wages, to be able to comply and reduce as much as we can the billions of dollars of outstanding child support payments.

You touched briefly on the changed definition of family violence, which I believe is from British Columbia's definition. There's a 2013 report that says that the courts still too often underestimate the consequences of family violence or being exposed to abuse.

How will the family violence provisions set out in Bill C-78 change the courts' approach to that, if at all?

What we've sought to do broadly in Bill C-78 is to provide as much information as possible to enable courts and other legal agents to be able to make determinations. We have taken the lead of other jurisdictions that have proceeded ahead of us in this regard. You mentioned British Columbia. Another jurisdiction, I would say, is Alberta.

We have, in terms of the definition around family violence, also put in place a list of the types of conduct that may constitute family violence. It's not an exhaustive list, but it provides a bit more detail or various situations that the court could consider in making the determination of a situation of family violence and being able to determine what is in the best interests of a child in those particular situations.

I believe, in terms of family violence, and violence generally, the more we are aware and the more we provide individuals and the court system with the necessary tools to be able to identify when it has occurred and understand the definition of family violence, and that it goes beyond physical violence. It can include financial violence and coercive behaviour. Understanding various situations and having examples or lists of factors around what violence can mean.... That list, as I've said, is evolving.

This definitely helps. These lists of various types of conduct have been discussed over the years and have led to changes in legislation in provinces. We want to ensure, with the changes to the Divorce Act, that we elevate and raise the issue of family violence as a really substantial challenge that comes into play at marriage breakdowns, separation and divorce, and that needs to be considered to ensure that, where it occurs, the best interests of the child are provided for. That's what we've sought to do in this legislation.

Are there other ways that we can address family violence? Absolutely, and, beyond Bill C-78, we have sought to provide a list and to ensure that we elevate this conversation, because we know that this is an incredibly destructive factor that happens, and children find themselves in the middle of those conversations. We want to make it as easy for the children as possible and provide the best parenting order for them.

We'll move to the second round of questions. So that the minister is finished by 4:30, I just want to remind everyone in this round that the Liberals and the Conservatives have five minutes each, and the NDP has three minutes each. This is a different order, so we'll start with Liberal, Conservative, Liberal, Conservative, and then NDP.

Minister, thank you for being here, and thank you for making 230 judicial appointments on your watch, a hundred in 2017, and the most of any minister of justice in over 20 years. I think it's also worth congratulating you that over half are women, eight are indigenous, 20 are from visible minority communities, 13 identify as LGBTQ2 and three identify as persons with disabilities. Bravo, that's a lot of work, and it's nice to see that people will be sitting on the bench for many years.

I also want to thank you for understanding in this legislation, though it's not explicit, that families come in all shapes, sizes and configurations. I went to my iPhone once and wanted to text David an image of what our family could look like at some point. He's Jamaican. There's no emoji that exists for a white man and a black man to have two kids, so I said, “Maybe some day when we have kids, we'll just send the image of our family into Apple and they'll give us a new emoji in the future”.

The gender-neutral language is really appreciated. I thank you for that and for understanding LGBTQ families. The sad thing is, when we got equal marriage, it also meant we got equal divorce. We have people whose relationships don't work on the same-sex side of the ledger as well. That also means that families need to be supported, and the courts need to understand that same-sex couples are going to be coming forward to them.

I just want to thank you for the work on this bill. I hear about it at doors, and I get correspondence on it. From a franco-Albertan perspective, I know that you've made great strides as minister to make sure we have functionally bilingual Supreme Court justices in our nomination process. In my own province of Alberta, organizations have received over a million dollars to support the important purpose of making sure that francophone Albertans can access divorce proceedings.

Could you chat a little more and share with us more information on that?

Thank you for talking about our judicial appointments. I really appreciate it. I would again underscore that families come in all shapes and sizes, so thank you for your comments around that.

In terms of official languages—and I know that there are other members of this committee who are concerned about access to justice in both official languages—that is a priority for me and it definitely includes being a priority in terms of the family justice system.

With that in mind—and I wrote this down because I suspected you would ask this question around bilingualism—we have expanded the scope of our support programs for the purposes of bilingualism through the Canadian family justice fund. One of the fund's priorities is to extend the reach of the family justice program services and information to meet the needs of diverse and underserved populations, including official languages minority communities in Alberta and other places.

In budget 2018, our government also increased access to justice in both official languages by more than 25%. In addition to that, finally I would say that, again, we are working with the provinces and territories recognizing that provinces come in many different shapes and sizes. Since justice is a shared responsibility, we're working with the provinces to ensure access to justice as much as we can in both official languages.

I know that my colleagues and friends with the Association des juristes d'expression française de l'Alberta also appreciate your work on this file.

I have noted that more of the appointed judges are completely bilingual, and I thank you for that.

Before I run out of time, could you share with us a little of how the prioritization of family debt comes into this bill and the understanding of where different debt levels come in for families? I understand that's also an important consideration in this legislation.